Why traveling alone is the best thing that can happen to you

I can guarantee you that once you tell your parents that you want to travel on your own, they will first look startled, then worried, and then they might even let out a tiny gasp. They’re your parents so it’s normal that they are worried, but I assure you: after you show them this post, they will be happy to let you go on your own.

1. If you are on your own, you can do whatever you want.You can go at your own pace. You are the person in charge – you plan where you want to go, what you want to see, and when you want to get up. It can be incredibly relaxing to just do what you feel like doing. If you like one city in particular, you can easily stay there a couple more nights for example.

2. You experience the place you travel to on a different, deeper level.
If you are on your own, you have to put yourself out there – you don’t have a best friend with you all the time who you can rely on and who will for example ask the bus driver for tickets or take care of you in a bar – you have to do all of this yourself. Because you don’t have your bestie around you 24/7, you tend to focus more on the experiences – the nature, and the places you go. Having your friend with you is like having a piece of home with you – not having your friend there enables you to experience the new country on a deeper level.

3. You will meet more (local) people.
This very much connects to the previous point. If you have a friend with you, it is less likely that you will talk to new people, because you already have a friend. But when you are on your own, you might want some company at some point – and then it is inevitable to talk to a person you meet in your hostel for example. Talking to the people in your hostel can be a great advantage, because often they have secret tips they got from locals or other travelers.

4. Being on your own helps you grow.
That just is the truth, no matter how cliché it might sound. If you are on your own for that long – especially in a strange and new country/culture – you just grow. You become more responsible, you become a more open, tolerant person, and you will become more aware of your limits. You will grow because you are responsible for yourself and your trip – if problems occur, you have to solve them and find solutions. You will become more independent, you might even learn another language, and – best of all – you will learn to be fully comfortable in your own skin.

5. You will find out that in the end, you are never truly alone.
Of course, if you really want to be alone, you can choose to be on your own. But you will also always find someone who wants to go to the same place as you, who likes the same things, or who even comes from the same town as you. You will realize that the world is actually really small, that there are beautiful places and people everywhere, and that we are all just looking for happiness.

9 thoughts on “Why traveling alone is the best thing that can happen to you”

I love #4 & # 5.
I have a few friends who, like yourself, love travelling and being on their own in a new place. Perhaps you have written about this already, but do you ever get homesick? If so, how do you deal with it?

You should definitely go for it! I was nervous at first too, but there really wasn’t any reason to be.
It was the best time of my life, I really got to know myself, and you meet so many great people on the way that you otherwise wouldn’t 🙂